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Historical Investigation

Immigration: Why Come to America?

Maryland State Curriculum – Social Studies, Grade 73.0 Content Standard: GEOGRAPHY – Students will use geographic concepts and processes to examine the role of culture, technology, and the environment in the location and distribution of human activities and spatial connections throughout time.C. Movement of People, Goods and Ideas1.Describe and analyze population growth, migration and settlement patterns in contemporary world regionsa. Identify reasons why people migrate, such as economic opportunity, climate, political reasons and government

policies

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3):

Dimension 2, Geography, Human-Environment Interaction 6 – 8D2.Geo.4.6-8. Explain how cultural patterns and economic decisions influence environments and the daily lives of people in both nearby and distant places.

Dimension 2, History, Change, Continuity, and Context, 6-8. D2.Hist.1.6-8 Analyze connections among events and developments in broader historical contexts.

Dimension 2, History, Causation and Argumentation 6-8D2.His.15.6-8. Evaluate the relative influence of various causes of events and developments in the past.

Dimension 3, Gathering and Evaluating Sources, 6 – 8D3.1.6-8. Gather relevant information from multiple sources while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.

D3.4.6-8. Develop claims and counterclaims while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both.

Literacy in History/Social Studies:

RH.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate

summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinionsRH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information analysis (e.g., graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information RH. 6-8.8 Distinguish among fact opinion and reasoned judgment in a text RH.6-8.9 Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic

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I. Engage the Students

Ask students what they think motivates people to move to the United States. Tell students that they will now be looking at a video segment from the PBS series The New Americans, in which

people describe why they want to move to the United States. Watch The New Americans trailer (02:48) http://www.pbs.org/itvs/globalvoices/newamericans.html Ask students what they think after watching

What is going on in the video? People from four different areas of the country give some reasons why they want to move to America and what they expect to gain from doing so.

Remind students that about what they have learned previously about the forces – both the push and the pull – that encourage people to immigrate to a new place.

Announce to the students that today, they will conduct an investigation centered on this compelling question:

ð How do political, social and economic forces influence migration to the United States?

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II. Conduct the Investigation

In order to address the compelling question, the students will examine several documents independently. As they analyze each document, they will record answers to the following questions on a Historical Investigation Resource Sheet:

Sourcing

What is the document? Who created it and when? What was its purpose? What does the text say explicitly?

Contextualizing

What is the author’s perspective? What else do we know about the time?

Close Reading and Asking Supporting Questions

What do the pieces of evidence tell me? Is this document credible and reliable?

Corroborating Where do the multiple sources agree and disagree? Which are the strong sources for answering the compelling question?

III. Discussion

After the documents have been analyzed, facilitate group discussions of the students’ initial responses to the compelling question. Be sure to remind the students to cite evidence to support their opinions. During these discussions, it is likely that multiple interpretations will emerge and may or may not be accepted by all. Finally, have each group record responses in the appropriate section of the graphic organizer.

IV. Report the Findings

Once historians complete their research, they formulate a thesis that answers the compelling question. In the final step of this historical investigation, the students will do the same. Remind the students that they will be making strong recommendations or arguments that should answer the compelling question and be supported with evidence from the documents.

When you write to persuade, remember:

Reasoning used in building an argument should be logical and clear. Arguments should have a beginning, middle, and end; beginning with author’s claim. Cite evidence from multiple sources. Some arguments can include an opposing or alternative opinion (elementary students will need

support to identify this element).

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Historical Investigation Resource Sheet

DIRECTIONS: As you analyze the primary source documents in your packet, complete the organizer below.

COMPELLING QUESTION: How do political, social and economic forces influence migration to the United States?

Sourcing What is the document? Who created it and when? What was its purpose? What does the text say explicitly?

Contextualizing What is the author’s perspective? What else do we know about the

time?

Close Reading and Asking Supporting Questions

What do the pieces of evidence tell me?

Is this document credible and reliable?

Corroborating Where do the multiple

sources agree and disagree? Which are the strong sources

for answering the compelling question?

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Historical Investigation Resource Sheet (cont’d)

Sourcing What is the document? Who created it and when? What was its purpose? What does the text say explicitly?

Contextualizing What is the author’s perspective? What else do we know about the

time?

Close Reading and Asking Supporting Questions

What do the pieces of evidence tell me?

Is this document credible and reliable?

Corroborating Where do the multiple

sources agree and disagree? Which are the strong sources

for answering the compelling question?

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Historical Investigation Resource Sheet (cont’d)

Basic Information About the Source-What is it?-When was it written or produced?-Who created it?-What was its purpose?

Explain the point of view of the person who created the source.

Does this source provide reliable information? How do I know?

How can this source help me answer the focus question?

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Document 1

The New Americans trailer (02:48)

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/globalvoices/newamericans.html

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Document 2.

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Document 3.

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Document 4

Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 by the St Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)

Farm Subsidies Rightly Inspire Third World Trade Revolt by Brian Halweil

In the real world, an ear of corn isn't always just an ear of corn. Food is wrapped up in culture, ethnic pride, cuisine and national security…

… the flotilla of farmers, environmentalists, consumer advocates and workers protesting outside the fenced-off convention center shared a common enemy with the Third World delegates inside who were arguing that global rules on agricultural trade were crippling their impoverished farm economies…

Current trade agreements prevent developing nations from favoring their own farmers and homegrown produce. Worse, the same agreements allow First World governments to subsidize their own farmers to the tune of $300 billion a year.

These subsidies allow wealthy nations to sell farm commodities on world markets at well below the cost of production. (In a nutshell, if it costs a farmer $3 to grow a bushel of corn, but the market is paying $2 a bushel, the government pays the farmer an extra buck, allowing the farmer to sell the crop for less than he otherwise could.) This is called dumping, and it's flatly illegal under international trade rules.

Both the United States and the European Union are notorious for dumping agricultural products.

Mexico provides a stark example. The country that hosted the Cancun talks also provided a large portion of the protesters: its own displaced farmers. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade rules, Mexico has been encouraged, even forced, to rely increasingly on cheap U.S. corn.

How could that be? Mexico's lower labor and living costs should give local growers a competitive edge. But Uncle Sam has his thumb on the scales in the form of $10 billion in annual subsidies that enable American corn growers to sell corn at $2.20 per bushel about 25 percent below production costs.

The result: Mexico now imports more than a quarter of its corn from the United States. That represents a nearly four-fold surge since NAFTA took effect nine years ago. Over the same period, inflation-adjusted prices for Mexican corn have plummeted by more than 70 percent, prompting millions of local growers to abandon their farms and seek work in nearby cities or the United States.

Thus, when Third World representatives at Cancun demanded that wealthy nations eliminate their agricultural subsidies, it wasn't simply to gain access to the world's most affluent markets, where food imports now look artificially expensive. They wanted to give farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America a fighting chance in their own domestic markets.

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Document 5.The Ogoni Refugees:Israel and Ngozi Nwidor

The tent that Israel Nwidor, his wife Ngozi, and their two children have called home for two years is worn and drooping. "When the rain falls you go outside, you're holding the ropes so that the place will not collapse," Israel explains. The small tent, one of hundreds crammed onto a muddy plain in a refugee camp in Benin, West Africa, has no running water, no bathroom and mats on the dirt floor that serve as beds.

The Nwidors are members of a small tribal minority known as the Ogonis. The Ogoni people opposed Nigeria's military government and the Shell Oil Corporation, which for years had been permitted to drill oil in their homeland despite a growing environmental catastrophe. Eventually, the military cracked down on the protesters, executing Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others. The wave of violence that followed forced many Ogonis to flee to refugee camps in neighboring Benin.

These Ogoni refugees are being resettled in different cities in the United States by the United Nations. All were forced out of their homes by discrimination and persecution and are coming to America because they cannot return to their homeland in the oil-rich Niger Delta Region. None of them know exactly where they will end up, nor do they believe they will be able to return to Nigeria. Most are hopeful about their new lives in America.

Israel and Ngozi Nwidor

"When I get to America, I want to lie on a good bed. I just want to have a nice sleep," says the optimistic Israel. Trained as a chemical engineer, he was unable to get a job in Nigeria's oil industry because of discrimination against the Ogonis. "I will be accepted in America," he says confidently. "Today, blacks living in the northern part of America are free and not discriminated against."

Although Ngozi Nwidor was born an Igbo, she fell in love with Israel when she was his student in their hometown of Bane, Nigeria. "Because of the love she had for Israel, she decided to stay and suffer with him," Ngozi's mother tells us. So now Ngozi is preparing to join Israel on a journey to America, "I've never been to America before. When I get there, I will join others, do the way they do, that’s all."

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Document 6.

The Indian Technical Worker Anjan Bachu

In the crowded city of Bangalore, India—known as the country's Silicon Valley—Anjan Bacchu, a successful computer programmer, is planning to apply for a job in the U.S.

"I have about five years of experience in India," he says. "It started to dawn on me that the scope of my career would be helped if I take it to the highest peak. I’d like to become a kind of expert in all the technologies so that I can use it when I come back to India."

Anjan is especially interested in the Internet and e-commerce. "The amount of knowledge that can be shared so cheaply by lots and lots of people is really amazing," he says. "And I feel that the Internet can make a lot of difference to India."

Before he applies for jobs in America, the practical Anjan wants to find and marry a traditional Indian wife. "My father, he was thinking of me as a kind of burden, that I wasn’t married," he says.

In a modern twist on the Indian tradition of arranged marriages, Anjan uses an online marriage bureau to find a wife. Anjan says he wants a "complete woman. She should be able to complement me, not compete with me. She should know English, because I’m going abroad. She should be enthusiastic, hard working, honest. I've got a very big list, in fact."

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Document 7.

The Flores Family

Pedro Flores has been separated from his wife, Ventura, and their six children for the past 13 years, seeing them only twice a year for short visits.

Pedro works as a meatpacker in Garden City, Kansas. The Flores's six children, five girls and one boy, live with Ventura on an impoverished ranch near Guanajuato, Mexico—1,200 miles and a hostile border away from Garden City.

"I want to see my family. Sometimes when I come home [to Mexico], I don’t feel like going back up there. But out of necessity, I have to go back."

Pedro lives as frugally as possible in a Garden City boarding house, trying to save money so that his family can legally migrate to the U.S.Today, Pedro is on his way home from work. He hopes that when he returns, his family will come to Kansas with him.

The farms in this part of Mexico are now dry and barren. A severe drought has decimated the once fertile land. Poor farmers have also been unable to afford the government fees to get permission to dig wells, leaving all the irrigation water to the wealthy. Many, like Pedro, have chosen to abandon the land for opportunities in the U.S.

Like most parents in rural Mexico, Pedro and Ventura could not afford to keep their children in school past the sixth grade. In America, they hope things will be different. "It’s beautiful to discover that through a piece of paper a person can speak," says Pedro, looking through a book with his youngest daughter. "That’s why I want them to go to school."

When Pedro must return to America one last time alone, the family bids a tearful farewell. He is determined to secure the papers he needs. "Nothing is guaranteed in life. What I want to give them is like an inheritance. Because I have nothing else to give them other than those papers, so they can cross and seek their future."

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Document 8.

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Document 9.

Although workers complained about the pain and exhaustion associated with work in processing plants, they often assumed that this was the price of having a job. Many workers expressed concerns about losing their jobs if they report injuries or complain about working conditions, and undocumented workers faced an additional layer of fear. As a result, workers that are injured on the production line often continue to work:

“Many of us are working without documents and they know. If we complain [the supervisors] take us to the office, that is why we do not complain.” (Worker in Minnesota)

“…we have to keep working in silence and not say anything because we need the job.” (Worker in Iowa)

“My coworker badly harmed her wrist. Her knife was dull, her hand got inflamed. She didn’t say anything because she wanted to keep her job.” (Poultry worker in Iowa)

Even though undocumented workers are protected by labor and civil rights laws, in practice they are extremely vulnerable. In meatpacking plants, the fear of retaliation by supervisors keeps workers silent even when they are injured or are faced with unpleasant working conditions.

Undocumented workers described suffering from a disparity in benefits and assigned more onerous tasks within meatpacking plants. Again, immigration status and fear of repercussions by supervisors plays an important role in facilitating unequal and exploitative treatment of workers:

“They treat us (Latino undocumented) different and privilege others because we cannot freely denounce them.” (Worker in Minnesota)

Focus group participants also reported that their pay checks commonly do not reflect the correct number of hours worked. However, undocumented workers are hesitant to complain because of their relative powerlessness at work and their sense that the problem could not be resolved:

“Once they didn’t pay me all the hours I worked, I was mad and complained. I told them I worked more hours and my supervisor said: next week you are going to get the difference. Then nothing happened; on the contrary they took more hours away from my pay check and never got the right salary.” (Worker in Iowa)

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Document 10.

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Document 11.There were the men in the pickle-rooms, for instance… scarce a one of these that had not some spot of horror on his person. Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle-rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floors men, the beef-boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be crisscrossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails,—they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking-rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef-luggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work, that began at four o’clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling-rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time-limit that a man could work in the chilling-rooms was said to be five years.

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Document 12.

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Teachers’ Notes:

The New Americans trailer (02:48)http://www.pbs.org/itvs/globalvoices/newamericans.htmlGlobal Voices offers intimate stories about everyday people. From India to Ethiopia, El Salvador to Iraq, Global Voices offers rare insights and firsthand perspectives from communities and individuals around the world.

US Census Bureau, Community Survey 2010

Teaching Tolerance, “Diego 2004” http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/tt_indentured_servitude_09_h3.pdf

Farm Subsidies Rightly Inspire Third World Trade Revolt by Brian HalweilPublished on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 by the St Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)

The Ogoni Refugees: Israel and Ngozi Nwidor http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/newamericans/ogoni_intro.html

The Indian Technical Worker Anjan Bachu http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/newamericans/indian_intro.html

The Flores Family http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/newamericans/mexican_intro.html

The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/jobs/posts/2013/08/02-immigration-wages-greenstone-looney

Always Working Beyond the Capacity of Our Bodies: Meat and Poultry Processing Work Conditions and Human Rights in the Midwest. A Report by the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights, The University of Minnesota, Human Rights Program in the Institute of Global Studies, October 2012

Upton Sinclair and THE JUNGLE: Photographs from Chicago’s Meatpacking Industry, circa 1900 http://thelitworks.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/upton-sinclair-and-the-jungle-photographs-from-chicagos-meatpacking-industry-circa-1900/

Excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1905), chapter 9.http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5727.html

Twists and Turns, Wednesday June 19, 2013 5:22 PM By Walt Handelsman